New York Sen. Hillary Clinton must be peeved by the suggestions that her international experience as First Lady doesn't count for much. Barack Obama said a lot of it amounted to "drinking tea" in fancy surroundings; Chris Dodd said she "witnessed experience."
As Bart Simpson might say: "Au contraire, mon frere!"
Speaking to an overflow crowd in a massive room at a Dubuque convention center, Clinton said she went many places in the 1990s that Bill Clinton couldn't go.
"We used to have a saying in the White House," Clinton said. "If a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady."
Recalling a tense corkscrew landing at an airport in war-torn Bosnia, she said: "I don't remember anybody offering me tea on the tarmac."
And she said she went to northern Ireland more frequently than her husband did during the peace talks there.
Finally, she mentioned her many meetings with Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf: "Three, four, five times, I don't remember."
UPDATE: According to Sen. Clinton's autobiography, she was accompanied on the Bosnia trip by the comedian Sinbad and rocker Sheryl Crow, as well as daughter Chelsea. There may not have been tea, but at least there was entertainment. And who knew Sinbad was a "part of the diplomatic team that conveyed America's values to the world," as Clinton describes her White House years?
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